The captain was in a rage.
"A pretty pass! Here lie I ready to weigh and make sail, but ne'er a loaf of bread aboard!"
"I cannot help you, Captain," replied my uncle. "I can only refer you to the Commissioner."
"Hang the Commissioner!" roared the irate officer. "First I am directed to apply to him; he sends me to you; you thereupon give me cold comfort by sending me again to the Commissioner. How can I take my ship to sea lacking bread and flour? Ah! Here, sirrah!" he broke off, noticing a man passing by. "Here, sirrah! You're the person I want."
The man addressed came across to where the captain and my uncle were debating. His calling was apparent, he being covered from head to foot with flour.
"Well, Hunt, how is it Captain Duce can get no supplies from you?"
The baker shook his head. "Over a thousand pounds are due to my partner and me," said he. "We were to be paid monthly, but have received nothing since September last. Verily, I am afraid to go abroad lest I am arrested by my creditors, whom I cannot pay, as the Navy Commissioners will not pay me!"
Without waiting to hear further, for complaints of arrears of payment were a common occurrence, Maurice and I stole away and wandered towards the slip where the Royal Oak was nearing completion.
A noble sight she made, this immense yellow-painted hull, with her double tier of gunports and her towering stern, richly ornamented with gilded quarter badges and richly carved galleries. Little did we know that a short seven years hence would see the ship, the pride of the king's navy, a battered and fire-swept wreck--but I anticipate.
In the midst of strange surroundings the time passed rapidly. Already the Restoration was an accomplished fact. Charles II was again at Whitehall "in the twelfth year of his reign", as the crown document has it. The gilded effigy of his sainted father was restored to its niche in the Square Tower at Portsmouth, where all persons passing were ordered to uncover. With few exceptions the townspeople welcomed the change, the whole place being given up to unrestrained merrymaking.